Hugh Douglas Hamilton RHA (1739-1808) – Portrait of “Colonel Hugh O’Donel (1760-1799) sold for €77,000 at hammer.
This portrait of Colonel Hugh O’Donel by Hugh Douglas Hamilton was the top lot at Fonsie Mealy’s sale of contents from Newport House, Co. Mayo. It made a hammer price of €77,000. The post is derived from the Apollo Belvedere at the Vatican. In 1793 with the threat of a French invasion, O’Donel raised a company of troops and became Lieutenant Colonel of the South Mayo Militia. Two years later in 1795 he was elected to the Irish House of Commons representing Donegal town. Along with his brother, Captain James Moore O’Donel (also elected to Parliament in 1795) he joined the parliamentary faction who strenuously opposed the proposed Act of Union with Great Britain-saying he would never surrender Ireland’s legislative independence. For his passionate opposition, and the Militia, to the Act of Union he was dismissed by the government from his colonelcy in 1799. The Lord Lieutenant, Lord Cornwallis, who suppressed the Rebellion of 1798, had offered him a peerage to vote for the Union but he refused. Hugh O’Donel died M.P., in Tralee, Co. Kerry in 1799.
Among the other top hammer prices a Georgian gilt rococo mirror made €50,000; a set of Giant Irish Elk antlers made €46,000; Waiting for the Steamer, Aran Islands by Sean Keating made €40,000; a Georgian dining table made €9,500; a portrait by Hugh Douglas Hamilton of Captain Henry Charles Sirr made €9,500 and a Regency chandelier made €5,200.